ANTIFERMENTS 257 



firmed. The inhibitory substances on trypsin in blood-serum, for in- 

 stance, have been ascribed by Jobling and Petersen 1 to the presence of 

 compounds of the unsaturated fatty acids. 



Antibodies and Antiferments. Elsewhere has been discussed more 

 fully the parallelism that exists between bacterial antibodies and 

 antiferments. One is impressed with the similarity of the processes 

 concerned in the breaking down of food-stuffs into simple substances 

 for assimilation by ferments and the destruction of bacteria and their 

 products by antibodies. The processes that occur when a cell digests 

 an ingested microbe by a cytase must be similar to that which occurs 

 in the digestion of any other foreign matter, and it is but a short step 

 to conceive that bacteriolysis in the body fluids is similar to the processes 

 concerned in the digestion of protein by the body cells. The close 

 similarity that exists between the toxins and the ferments, the anti- 

 toxins and the antiferments, complements and kinases, and the quantita- 

 tive relations existing between a toxin and its antitoxin, between a fer- 

 ment and its antiferment all these indicate, as Adami has pointed out, 

 the close parallelism that exists between toxins and cytolysins and fer- 

 ments of different orders and grades. They would seem to indicate, 

 moreover, that we are probably dealing with one common group of en- 

 zymic substances that act not by physical contact, but by chemical 

 combination. 



Antiferments in Disease. In this connection a subject of consider- 

 able interest is the probable nature of the syphilitic antibody so vitally 

 concerned in the Wassermann reaction. Although the true nature of 

 this reaction is unknown, there can be no doubt as to the intimate re- 

 lation of lipoidal substances to the processes concerned. It is probable 

 that the Treponema pallidum produces a true antibody, and a second 

 body, in the nature of a cellular reactionary substance, which has a 

 marked affinity for lipoids. When the two substances are mixed and 

 complement added, the latter is adsorbed or inactivated to a greater or 

 less degree, so that upon the subsequent addition of washed erythrocytes 

 and its corresponding hemolytic amboceptor hemolysis either does not 

 occur at all or is more or less incomplete. A similar "reagin" is present 

 in the blood-serum of persons suffering with yaws and tuberculous lep- 

 rosy, and although its exact nature is unknown, its peculiar behavior 

 toward the lipoids suggests strongly that it is a product of the toxic 

 action of the causal parasite upon the lipoids of the body-cells and is in 

 the nature of an antilipoid. (See Wassermann reaction.) 



1 Jour. Exper. Med., 1914, xix, 459. 

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